While parents all over the world struggle to get their little cherubs to wolf down their multi-vitamins, meteor-infected bugs seem to have a pretty insatiable appetite for all things yellow. Crash-landing into a cornfield from their planet among the stars and led into battle by their malevolent queen, the invaders are in their element, anticipating the feast of their dreams. What they hadn't counted on, however, are the incredible effects the meteor rock’s energy will have on the vegetables. Knowing their territory is about to be overrun, the newly mutated cobs come to life, arm themselves with devastating artillery and unprecedented military discipline and prepare to defend what’s rightfully theirs.

Corn Quest’s campaign requires tactical placement of units and regular maintenance of defending flag outposts so the outbreak of bugs don’t get near the golden cob at the end of the path. Progressing through stages offers a variety of unit choices, such as the Grunt, Sniper and Flamethrower. Each unit is tailor-made to fight specific bug types. While the sniper sends off piercing rounds that will eat through armoured beasts, the RPG unit is best suited to taking out a group of foes clumped together. Meanwhile the Engineer, the only non-combat troop in the game, is solely used to maintain the flags if they come under attack.

The only way to summon units into the fray is by spending energy. That energy is slowly generated by the golden cob, but can also be collected from defeated bugs, or produced while engineers are hard at work on the flags.

Players select their unit of choice at the bottom of the screen, and then position them on flashing circles scattered over the map. This can cause some interaction issues though, as players will also need to drag the screen in order to get a full picture of where the bugs are coming from. This can see the player accidentally placing units where they hadn't planned and spending energy points unnecessarily. The action is always furious, and seeing troops decimate the opposition is generally satisfying.

Corn Quest also includes a Survival mode, which sees players fighting waves of enemies until the golden cob is destroyed, and a Sudden Death mode which sees the game end if any bugs reach the golden cob. As such, there’s quite a bit of replayability to be had.

While there is a very linear combat strategy which makes it seemingly impossible for players to lose, Corn Quest remains a solid, bargain-priced, strategy title that is very easy on the eye and fun to play. Spending time with vegetables has never been quite so great.

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